


The Laughlines of Their Smiles

by 13letters



Series: The Seasons That Change; the Kisses Home In Your Hips [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Marriage, Romance, Sexual Situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:54:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4560192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she's thirteen, she decides to hate eighteen year old Gendry, except not really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Laughlines of Their Smiles

When she's thirteen, she decides to hate eighteen year old Gendry, except not really.

But she wants to.

Except she really can't _hate_ him, can she? If you're a woman, you understand.

But today is one of the days she won't talk to him because she's mad he was out late last night with his girlfriend. It's petty, she knows, she's chosen to coincidentally not listen to her name or what she does or anything about her when Jon and Gendry and Theon talk about her, but while she knows it's not like he can date her instead of his girlfriend (Ros, because after the first three hours of stubbornly ignoring everything, she just _had_ to know), he really ought not to date anyone else.

Maybe she could grow up faster, or he could just grow down, or -- "You okay?" he asks, all concerned brows and worried blue eyes as he tips his head, sparing her the briefest of glances since he's driving extra careful since her feet are on the dash.

Road safety, manners, but her parents raised her to not be rude, and while she can hear him over her music, she needs to take her earbuds out. So she does and pauses the stupid Van Halen song she knows he hums sometimes when he's cooking. "Yep," she says, trying to smile at him.

He relaxes, and when she takes a tissue from the glove compartment and starts wiping off her stupid lipgloss Sansa bought her, he glances over, grinning like he's one of her older brothers or an adult humoring a kid playing at being a grown-up. "Looks nice on you," and he's her unfairly unattractive older crush again, "pretty color."

She _pfft's_ , wanting to be mad at him since that was just a smidgen patronizing, but her cheeks are a fair shade pinker, so she ducks her head, pushes in one of his CDs.

It's Madonna. She's judging just a little bit.

But then they're talking weekend plans.

He doesn't have any with his girlfriend, and selfishly, she's happy for that, smiling at the paved walk to the front door as he shouts his good-bye. When she turns back to wave, she see's him on the phone, and oh. It's probably Ros, and her walk isn't near as animated as it was seconds ago.

"It won't ever work between us, will it?"

Bran stares at her for a long moment, and since it's hours later, since his door was open and she _had_ to ask since he wise and the only sibling she had hope for, she's standing in kitten-print pajamas, hand-me-downs from Sansa. But Bran's too quiet, and she feels stupid for the hope in her doubtful voice and wants to tell him nevermind.

"Why won't it?" he finally questions, and she shrugs.

"I'm too young, aren't I?"

"Well," he starts, and yes, she thinks as his nose scrunches when he looks to the side ponderously, this is why she came to him for advice. "You won't always be. Age is just a number, after all."

..Oh. Well. Says every Hallmark card ever. But the first part sounded good, and this is why she had hope for Bran. All their brothers and sister were screwed. "Thanks."

"And," he interjects loudly when she turns away, "prison is just a room."

She stares at him. He stares back. "Right," she says in the awkwardness. "Well."

She hurries off to her room. All her siblings were screwed.

\- -- - -- -

When she's fifteen, he's twenty, and she tries to avoid that phase.

 _The_ phase where near every girl her age discovers their love for Jane Austen and erotica novels and just toast for breakfast, since pfft, calories, _pfft_ , actually harboring an independent thought process.

But there Gendry is, all tall and beautiful and muscled and leaning against the door of his truck since she demanded via text message he take her for food after her school lets out. And there he was as soon as she walked out the front doors, looking like something out of a movie except no, she's not going through that phase.

It might be her birthday week, though, and she might have tried to put conscious effort into what she wore today, just to look a little bit nicer in case the strange winter-spring months of bright sun but then death frost were as bipolar as ever, making her hair turn to static and muddying her shoes and deciding the difference between a bulky coat or something rockin'.

Today was definitely something rockin', and damn his grin as she walks to him, a flash of white teeth grinning his cigarette into place with a nod to her as he scuffs it out, unlocks his door, reaches from the inside to flip the switch on hers. "Where to, miss?" he mocks, all posh and Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson beeping the horn of that old automobile in _Titanic_.

 _The stars_ , she thinks, before she hates herself for knowing the damned next line.

"Where we always go," she huffs, but a bright grin is threatening to split her face in two since he's still smiling like an idiot as he backs out of the parking lot.

It distracts her from demanding he never call her that again, but then distracts her all over again when he suddenly slams his palm on the horn, shouts at a red car trying to pull in front of him in " _a bloody school zone, you --_ "

He still didn't like to curse too much in front of her, hadn't since she was ten, and Shireen (she was going through -the- phase where she became obsessed with Jane Austen) would think that was sweet if she told her, probably.

"We celebrating anything in particular?" he looks to her, a half-shout since he'd rather scream than turn down the radio he's tapping his fingers to on the steering wheel, and she laughs, tells him that it's simply her existence they're feasting for. "Good reason!"

"The best!" And her air guitar solo when the familiar bridge of Poison's _Fallen Angel_ plays for the umpteenth time they've ridden together was the very best.

"You're something, you know that?" he tells her as he slows the car, pulling into the diner they visit as often as he rolls his eyes at her.

"Something good?" Because she'll take all that she can, opening the door before he can open it for her.

"Dunno," he says, making her worry until he smiles like he always does, full-tilt and lit like the lighter he's flicking on and off. "The best, you said?"

"No smoking in here, goober!" an older woman she doesn't know shouts at Gendry's lighter, but she's shaking in mirth, a small pad of paper and a pen in hand as she leads them over to one of the few open booths in the small place.

"I wasn't," he whines like a child, and the waitress pats his cheek. "I'll be right back."

She watches her disappear behind the counter, a question furrowing her brow when she looks back to him, and he nods over. "She was a friend of my mum's. We'd come here a lot when I was a kid and she'd give Mum free coffee and put whip cream all over my pancakes, like --"

"Here we go!" the woman calls too loudly. Helen, says her nametag, with a smiley face. Gendry grimaces before he laughs, gesturing to the two plates of pancakes she set on the table swirled in whipped cream made like a face, strawberries and blueberries.

"That," he chuckles, and she smiles when Helen pats his cheek again.

"I've barely seen you since I was switched to noon shifts, boy. Where've you been hiding out? Or," she pauses, looking to her, "who've you been hiding out with?"

She grins, and Arya laughs, too. She likes this woman, she decides. She likes what this is saying about Gendry. "I'm Arya."

"And you must be famished; eat! And you," she warns, turning a sudden glower to Gendry, "better not make yourself scarce around here."

"I still call every Sunday!" But she was already at the other end of the diner, taking care of the other patrons. "Sorry," he says, a smile still at his mouth, but he isn't, not really. "Close friend of my mum's, they were always together, y'know. She helped a lot at the end of it, uh." Helped keep him fed with a roof over his head, too, but he keeps smiling, peeling the sticker from around the napkins hiding the utensils.

"I like her," she assures him, kicking his shin under the table. He laughs again only to jump when Helen comes back in a fret because she forgot their tea. "We," because yes, them, not just him, "should come here more afternoons then, not just breakfasts or dinners."

"We should," and he tears into his pancakes, and Jesus, she shouldn't think the way he eats is cute.

"I want to walk," she tells him when they've finished, after Helen squeezed him in a good-bye hug much to her giggling amusement.

And because he won't deny her much else but his smokes, he agrees, figuring they could at least make it to the record store a block or two away in a minute or fifteen.

"Tell me what you're thinking about?" She nudges his arm next to her, turning her cheek into her grey scarf.

"Lots of things."

"Nothing if not specific, are you?"

"Hey," he starts like a warning, but his smile is bright as he looks down to her and drapes his arm over her shoulders. "I'm actually thinking about my mum."

"Oh." She almost feels bad for asking, his smile's just a bit tighter around his eyes, she sees, and their steps are soft atop the cement, the wind a smidgen more bitter in the way it reddens their faces. "You don't talk about her much."

"No," he says. "I don't, do I?"

"Do you want to?"

He's quiet a beat, they walk and walk until they reach the shop he guided her towards, and she almost thinks he won't answer. It's been minutes. The record store's bell jingles as they walk in. He tugs her over to where he can find any of The Killers' albums.

"I think so. I do, yeah," he tells her so randomly, she almost forgot about it, too.

"Well, anytime I'll listen. You're always there for me." She tries not to laugh when he finds The Twisted Sisters.

"Sure," and his smile's all soft and white teeth and a hand through his hair, a grin all its own in his eyes as he watches her. "Like a date, 'en?" And he walks over to where one of the clerks has been eyeing him since he walked in.

It's Loras Tyrell. He's still in that phase.

\- -- - -- -

When she's seventeen, after he kissed her when he was twenty-one, he snogged her then acted like he was afraid to so much as hold her hand.

And she hates that she has to ask but she wants but she maybe can't but she will and what if he laughs at her or really doesn't oh, God.

"Gendry?" He doesn't look up from the engine of his truck. "..Do you not, uh. Fancy me or something?"

When he looks to her impassively, oh, no, she thinks. She should have asked differently, or never asked at all, and oh, no. Now was not the time to be so stupidly seventeen.

"What the hell gave you that idea?" he demands. The way his white tank top hugged his pecs and was smattered all in oil and grease stains was distracting. That, and how he actually looked affronted at her.

"You haven't tried to.. kiss me. Since then. Or ask me out or anything, and I --"

"Hey," he interrupts, moving to her and smearing engine grease on her cheek tenderly (playfully). "I didn't know you wanted me to."

"Oh, my God."

"What?"

"Nothing, you just.. didn't know I wanted to kiss you for years, and you think I don't want you to," she says, shaking her head as best she can with his palm at her cheek. "Oh, my God."

He bites his lip like he always does before he decides to say something or not. "I know you did. Want to kiss me for years, I mean."

She stares at him deadpan. "You did not."

And he cracks under her intense stare after four seconds. "You're right, I didn't. You were always mean to me."

"Just kiss me, stupid," she sighs, tilting her head back and pressing up to her toes and closing her eyes and wetting her lower lip with her tongue all prepared. "Whenever you're ready."

When he presses his mouth to hers, she feels him shaking with laughter against her, and she punches him.

\- -- - -- -

She's twenty. He's twenty-four.

He just stormed out after a fight, but she can't remember why they started arguing. It was her fault, probably, but it's not like she'd admit that to the empty kitchen or the lonesome couch or the last box she'd yet to unpack.

Dishes, socks, photographs. It's their life in cardboard, and she hates it for a fraction of a rage-blind second. She hates him for walking out when he always said he was better than that.

In the thirteen minutes it took her to put her arms through the sleeves of his jacket and blindly reach for her keys so she could search for him, she opens their door to see him sitting on the porch. He'd never left.

He looks tired, so tired, the lines on his face darker in the flickering porch light, a red glow lit up from the end of his cigarette. He doesn't look up when the screen nearly hits him, just sits there, puffs smoke out to the night sky.

For a wild, guilt-rendering second, she worries this is it.

But he just pats the wooden step next to where he's sitting before he points towards the lawn. "I first kissed you there," he gruffs out, but she already knew that. "I'm going to kiss you there again."

"You can't keep kissing my anger away," she murmurs, mostly so it's said, so he knows. It's heavy in the night air around them.

"I know." Flicking the ashes off the end of his cigarette, he tossed it down, smothered it. "But you kiss mine away," and he looked to her for a long moment, drew her in, and they didn't leave the porch for a long while.

\- -- - -- -

She's twenty-four, and he's twenty-eight.

They were legally married again several hours ago.

It rained as they walked back to the main building.

Her dad walked stiffly with his wife on his arm, murmuring something about if Rickon was being truthful or not.

"Dad," she tried to say, her fingers squeezing the life out of Gendry's, "it's not that serious."

"Not that serious?" he repeated, his voice tighter in the panic his neutral tone tried to suppress. "You got married and didn't tell anyone."

"Well," she starts as tactfully as she always does, the wheels in her mind spinning a mile a second to construct a pleasing answer. Until she nearly dislocated her shoulder (like Sansa almost dislocated her shoulder playing charades hours ago because she's rubbish at games) when her arm jerked because Gendry jerked away from holding her hand because Jon punched him again.

"Hey!" he shouted, groggy and angry and deserving worse, honestly. His nose wasn't even bleeding.

"Jon!" she sighed.

Rickon just laughed.

"You know," Sansa said to her when everyone was making a fuss, "the chances of you two having sex tonight was unlikely already. Most couples are exhausted after the wedding and reception."

"Sansa," she whispered, shocked and proud and worried. "Did that happen to you."

She tossed her auburn hair over her shoulder, all haughty and indignant, because of course not. "Yes," she laughed. "We both fell asleep still dressed."

And apparently that was a Stark tradition.

"I don't even want to take the dress off," she whines from their bed later, though you bet she kicked off her shoes.

"I didn't think I wouldn't want to take your dress off," Gendry sighs mournfully, collapsing onto the bed so it dips and flops as he crawls and wriggles up to the pillows.

But somehow he decided she was a better pillow, and he hugged his arm around her torso to tug her closer to him, his cheek resting on her tummy. "Sansa was right."

"Willas was right. And I was going to ravage you tonight, too."

She waited for the arousal to waken her up, but it didn't, so she curled up her knees to kick them beneath the blankets he was weighing down. "In the morning?" she yawns, threading her fingers through his inky black hair. "Everything's better in the morning."

"About 3 AM."

"That's in like seven minutes, Gen. I'm so tired I could cry." She tries to stretch, but he starts wriggling uncomfortably.

"I forgot to take my jacket off," he whines, sounding so distraught it's strange he started snoring the next second.

\- -- - -- -

She's still twenty-four, and he's twenty-nine, and married life is as brilliant as it was the first time.

There was a strange freedom that came with it, something she was worried she might lose, though by all means, she'd been married for much longer and living the domestic type of life-partners with him long before then. It was just oddly.. liberating.

She didn't lose more of her privacy, more of her control and pants-wearing in their relationship. Everything was just better, more _them_ , and she didn't know how it could be any better than now. Right now, watching Gendry from the window as he tried to fix a motorbike Rickon swore up and down to Mum and Dad he wouldn't be driving.

"Reckless," she murmured to Shireen. It was always what Mum called him.

"Not always," she said back, raising her mug of coffee to her lips approvingly.

Gendry and Rickon might be shirtless on the lawn.

Only one of those is aesthetically pleasing to Arya.

"I never gave you the shovel talk, y'know."

When a touch of fear sparked in (Baratheon) blue eyes, she laughed and shook her head, smiling to put her brother's girlfriend at ease. "You don't need it," she assured. "I gave it to him. His punk ass better think twice before ever hurting you."

It was a jest, but Shireen couldn't really believe there wasn't any truth to the threat. "But he isn't always so.. _wild_ ," she frowned, for lack of a better word. "He can be gentle. Sweet, even."

That might have been too much to know, but like watching a car wreck or a burning building or Gendry painfully trying to think, she couldn't look away, couldn't help knowing more about. "Always?"

"Not always," she said at once, the curve of her lips secret. Until she realized she'd given away too much. "Not -- I mean, not like that, just other places. Uh."

She watched the girl tug at her hair to smooth it over her cheek like she always did when nervous. "In bed," she offered helpfully.

"We don't --" she started, but that wasn't good either. "I mean," she tried again when Arya arched a brow, "he's sweet, but sweet in other ways, too. He's not reckless abandon, he's thoughtful. Considerate."

"Like you can be?"

" _Can_ be? You might have caught me snogging him, but I like to cook for him and make sure he stays emotionally stable as well," she huffs, only teasing in part.

As light as the words were, they hit home more than she cared to admit, and Arya couldn't even pretend to intimidate Shireen when she was one of the only other people looking out for him. Genuinely and unconditionally. "I understand," she said softly. "He's lucky to have you."

The Starks had been lucky in love, hadn't they? Or -- no.

The Baratheons were the damned lucky gits that did so well with their Starks. Yep.

\- -- - -- -

She's twenty-five when he's just turned thirty three weeks ago.

To be honest, they're still celebrating his next decade while she keeps calling him old and he keeps rolling his eyes like they're fifteen and twenty all over again, but thirty proves all sorts of different. He's sexier than he was at twenty.

So with weak apple wine and less clothing than religiously appropriate, she doesn't know how her bra ended up hanging on the lamp, but oh, well. While spontaneity might have died down just a little years ago when they settled to domesticity different than anytime-they-can intimacy, they were still hot. Very hot.

He almost didn't want to get up from bed this morning where he woke with his cock in her mouth, her tongue sliding over him, her cheeks hollowing around --

But today was an important day.

Bran had one of few annual appointments today, just a check-up, and after everything went well, because it would, there was a Stark family lunch so they could all celebrate Robb nearly achieving his PhD.

Or well, that was the intention, all five siblings (six plus Theon), Ned and Cat, Willas, Gendry, Shireen.

"You have such lovely, well-behaved children," an older nurse gushed to Mum, like they were all aged under twelve again.

"We watched a lot of _7th Heaven_ growing up," Rickon piped up, and Ned shushed him.

"We're not staying long," Catelyn sighed in exasperation, pinching the bridge of her nose when thirty year old Robb tried to climb in the hospital bed with Bran like he always used to.

"You've gotten fat," Bran groaned, squished up against the bed-guard. "You don't fit anymore."

"Do, too," Robb laughed, and two grown men do fit in those cramped hospital beds, let it be known.

Maybe Loras Tyrell already knew that.

"I'm starving," Arya groaned, and their mum sighed again.

"We have a lunch reservation after this appointment, dear."

"I'll be hungry then, too." In all of two seconds, six pairs of eyes flashed to her in accusation and wonder. "Really now," she grumbled. She muttered something that sounded like _fuckers_ , but Gendry was the only one that heard. And knew she wasn't pregnant. "I'm just hungry! Don't read into it."

"I got it," he said, "anyone want anything?"

"Skittles!"

"Poptarts."

"Double Skittles."

"So four packs," Gendry counted, opening the room's door. "Theon gets angry when Jon doesn't get his own and asks for his, and Sansa doesn't know how to share." She glowered at him. "Got it."

"Wait," Robb said, half-raising up from the bed to look out the door. "Is that the nurse from last time?" Bran smacked him, but he couldn't be too bitter, not really. Robb was the wingman big brother that asked the doctors all the questions they wouldn't talk about with their mum and dad there. Like about sex. "It is! I'll be right back. Wait -- how's my hair?"

Bran kicked him from the foot of the bed, but Theon flashed him a thumbs up. And so Robb was off to meet his destiny, and Ned groaned, tried to sit on the four free inches of window-seat space. "Arya," he called calmly, "would you please call your husband and ask him to bring me some liquor from the vending machine?"

But they didn't have that, and besides -- Gendry was busy watching Robb fall in love.

"What's your name?" Robb asked the nurse with long brown hair, doe-looking brown eyes. Just outside Bran's room with the vending machine right down the hall.

She smiled, and it might have been a little patronizing. "Talisa." She gestured to her name badge, and Robb's ears were red.

"Robb," he tried to smile all lawyer charm. "Robb Stark."

To his relief, she laughed, and dear Jesus, this was like a bad rom-com. "Stark, room 13," she nodded. "The doctor should be with you soon, if that's what you stopped for."

"No, I -- I wanted to see you, actually."

"Oh?" She smiled, smoothed the pale green color of her scrubs, really seemed to look at him, all auburn curls and blue eyes and that puppy dog smile that only seemed to brighten. "Well, Robb Stark. I hope to never see you here again," she said coyly.

And after nodding to his room with a smile too soft to be a true smirk, she'd taken off, and he whistled lowly under his breath. "Do you think she meant it?" he asked Gendry.

Gendry just handed him a Snickers, because four bags of Skittles and a Poptart meant half the vending machine's contents.

\- -- - -- -

The next time they're at the hospital, it's not for Bran. Or even Willas, or one of those gyno appointments she goes to every so often.

It's for Robb, and maybe Talisa meant it, but the nurses keep whispering something about _critical care_ and saying other things that make Mum's eyes even redder, and Arya really decides now that she hates hospitals. She hates them.

She hates whoever did this to Robb, too.

\- -- - -- -

A few months later, after she's just turned twenty-six and they're both still enjoying his thirty year old self, she gets the news.

While they've been noncommittally looking for a larger house, one with extra rooms they'd pretend Rickon and Shireen weren't having sex in, there wasn't anything rushed about their search. They had all the time in the world, like they were still playing at living together and ordering Chinese or cooking spaghetti since he insisted his was the best in the world. That's Ragu for you.

It was Sansa who told her about the cute little house for sale, though. With a tall wooden fence concealing their backyard, a giant oak tree shielding the patio, perfect for their kids if they'd want a tree house. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms. A wood burner instead of a fireplace, but the brick wall made it look so cozy and warm with the soft yellow paint on the living room walls, and yes.

"Yes," she told Gendry, standing there in the not-so-spacious-but-perfectly-livable dining room where light streamed in from the backdoor. "Yes."

His hand reached out to hers and clutched it tightly, and neither of them were listening to the sensible questions Sansa was asking the realtor. "Yes," he repeated softly. "I think we're buying a house."

"Can we?" she asked gently, not as demanding, glancing to him before looking back to the yard where she was seeing blue-eyed children run around in the future. Their drawings magneted to the fridge. Their pictures lining shelves on the bookshelf they'd set just over there by their coffee table. It'd looked perfect there. She'd have to remember to tell him the wood flooring needed a rug.

"We can," he murmured, smiling as he tugged her forward and kissed her forehead. "We're buying a house."

And so they bought the house.

"We're not having a housewarming party," he grumbled, pulling his t-shirt over his head.

With the pretense of undressing, pfft, he just knew his abs won arguments.

"But someone might bring us a wafflemaker."

"You don't even like parties. _I_ can buy you a wafflemaker!"

"I don't want one," she sighs sadly, rolling over she can't see him unbuckle his jeans.

"But you just said --" he starts, confused.

"Shhh."

"Arya?"

"No," she grumbles, suddenly annoyed. "I don't want to talk to you."

"..Babe." And she throws a pillow at him, so maybe she just needs time? He rings up Jon, invites him out to a football game, scowls when he laughs at Arya's attitude, comes home to seventeen different pregnancy tests laying unsanitarily on the kitchen table.

"Arya!" he shouts, because most of them look as if they read positive with plus signs, and that means she's pregnant, right? That means they're pregnant! "Arya!" He goes to the bin, tries to search for a box that tells him if the plus signs mean there's a baby the size of a grape in his wife's tummy or not. "Arya!"

"Gendry!"

"Arya?" He's running through their small house since they haven't moved into the larger one yet, dodging boxes, scanning over chairs, the couch, their bed -- the bathroom. The door's open, and she's peeing on another stick. "Arya," he breathes, stumbling against the doorframe. "Are you..?"

" _We_ ," she smiles, and he chokes as she finishes with the eighteenth test and washes her hands.

"We're having a baby?" he whispers, grinning and awe-struck and probably going to cry, dammit.

"We are," she whispers back, before she squeals loudly and lunges her arms around his neck. "I'm pregnant." She'd bought the Gatorade to keep drinking between all these tests and the bleach for the table, because where was she supposed to put all these tests, really?

"A baby," he repeated in wonder," brushing a flyaway lock of dark hair from her eyes. "What're we going to call her?"

"Her?" She gave him a ridiculous look, told him that the baby would be a boy.

But then the panic started to set in, because she was having a baby, they were going to be parents, and what would they feed him or her? Where would baby go to school? What if baby didn't like bacon or their parenting tactics or their music tastes? What if baby pretended he or she was a hostage on car trips like Arya used to?

"Oh, God," she said, trying to relax her breathing. "We don't know anything about being parents."

"Actually," he interrupted, "I've always been good with --"

Her look silenced him, and he held her hair as she threw up.

\- -- - -- -

When she's twenty-six still while he's thirty-one, she thinks he's gotten used to holding back her hair and soothingly rubbing her back and handing her the toothbrush she should probably replace soon.

He's sweet, and while she's always known that, she hadn't really expected foot massages even when he's exhausted, midnight ice cream or waffle mix or mashed potato (she always hated them before) runs. She didn't expect Gendry to be so _here_ with her.

Again, she never dreamed it'd be like this, her propped against the door since it doesn't need repainting, three pillows to support her back as she lounges with those best burritos anyone could ever buy ever since he politely demanded they be take-out.

And she not so politely demanded he take off his shirt while painting their baby girl's room a soft blue since pfft, pink, and when she asked if he'd just flex a little more, well. He did.

Except he was so afraid to _touch_ her, it seemed. He didn't want to hurt the baby, he said.

" _I want you to fuck my brains out,_ " she said back, but he wasn't having it.

So she gets burritos (he brought her two) and his rippling back muscles, a painted handprint stain on the back pocket of her four sizes larger maternity jeans because he's bad at keeping his own rules.

"Do we want to think about names?" he asks off-handedly, bending over to dip his paintbrush in the blue can.

Oh, his assets.

She moans, but it could have been from the steak burrito, too.

"We could always wait, see what type of name fits?" she says around bites.

"Don't think any name's good enough," he grumbles, low and quiet, looking to the wooden crib he built with a clear tarp over it to protect it from paint splotches.

She can see him with a tiny pink baby in his arms, something so precious cradled in the gentle strength he'd protect her with always, and it tugs at her heart more than just a lot. She sniffles into her burrito, nearly letting out a cry as she reaches for the salty tortilla crisps and salsa.

"Hey," he says, frowning and crossing over to kneel in front of her, looking like he'll cry if she keeps crying. "What's wrong, honey? Don't cry, please, everything's fine here."

She sniffles again, wanting to laugh at how ridiculous she feels, but he looks so pleading like something's really wrong, and it tears her heart all over again. "'Kay," she manages, taking a sip of the Pepsi when he holds it out to her, bendy straw and everything.

"We could name her after your mum," she says next, her tone all groggy and watery like his eyes when she looks up to him. "We could --"

"Arya," he interrupts, and he's looking at her like she's the world, his hands on her very round and protruding belly.

But she never catches what he says next, he's kissing her, and there's paint on both their faces.

\- -- - -- -

She'll be twenty-seven soon. He's still thirty-one, but the baby should really be born by now, who cares if it's only been seven and a half months.

They're at the baby shower she told him she didn't want that he schemed with her mum to plan, and he didn't even have the sense to tell Catelyn that their daughter's things were favoring blue, not pink.

But God bless Sansa for lots of yellow onesies and socks and things, even if there were ducklings on most of them.

"It's like she wants baby to be the ugly duckling," she grumbles to Gendry, ever the benevolent, faithful manservant at her side. He hands her another dish of chocolate bonbons, and she shovels them into her mouth.

"Baby's going to be a swan," he says tenderly, almost automatic by now.

"A wolf," she hisses.

"Theon, don't do it like that," someone's saying, and really, whose idea was it for all the guys here to put diapers on teddy bears? All of them. Even some she doesn't know, like Trystane, Cella from the office's boyfriend. Cousin Robert, but even Sansa thinks he's a brat.

This is more like a family get-together than a baby shower, but maybe she's grateful for that -- even if Aunt Lysa spent about twenty minutes congratulating Gendry on abstaining from the confounded protection God didn't intend. If women can have babies, they're going to have babies.

Christ.

"Rickon," Mum says, and Arya's counting down the minutes until it's socially acceptable to leave. "How did you get so good at changing diapers?"

There's accusation and warning there, but Rickon rolls her eyes, points out loudly that their dad is rubbish at it, and he should have helped her out more.

Everyone laughs but Ned, and oh, families. Until.

"Why," Arya whispers, oh-so-sadly. "Why did you get me a wafflemaker as a baby gift, Jon."

"Gen--" he starts, looking between her and Gendry unsure. "Gendry said you wanted one," but he looks like the fear of God has been put into him, and then she's throwing her tissue paper at him though it doesn't go more than a foot towards him.

"What kind of insensitive joke are you trying to make?" she near screeches, huffing. "People keep talking about buns and ovens, but a fucking _wafflemaker_? Jon Stark!"

"Arya," Gendry tries gently.

"He said you wanted to eat waffles!"

"He's an idiot!"

"You married him!"

"I did not!" she shouts automatically. But then realization hits, and Gendry coughs to hide a laugh. "I did, I mean. Twice!"

"Three times," Rickon offers helpfully, and half the room believes that lie.

"That's why we kicked him out," she whispers to Gendry, glaring.

"Yeah," he says gruffly.

Everyone's arguing now. Sansa's shouting at Jon, Theon's just holding his teddy bear like it's a real baby, Catelyn's fixing herself and her husband a drink, Bran's creating a timely diversion by shout-asking if Robb's engaged or not.

He is.

"We can leave whenever you want," she tells Gendry to make it seem like it's his idea.

"Nice try," he smiles like the smug bastard he is, and she flops further into the couch, snuggling into the pillow that alleviates all that fucking pressure from her spine even if it weighs on her bladder a little more. "An hour more," he promises, leaning forward to peck her lightly on the lips.

"Oi!" Jon shouts like he always does when Gendry's kissing her. Like they aren't two adults now, like she's still his kid-sister.

"Fuck off," she grumbles, but Gendry kisses her cheek next instead, chastely, and Jon still shouts.


End file.
